Corona x Parley: Plastic-Free Six Pack Rings

“Our oceans are under attack. We are taking their life in rapid speed, destroying the chemistry that allows us to be here. Therefore we are bidding on the few who take the lead in true change. The ones who are shaping the future with us. Corona is such an Ocean Champion, a powerful ally in our war against marine plastic pollution — and in building the material revolution that will lead us beyond it. We share the goal of phasing plastic out for good, because we simply can’t afford its toxic impact anymore.”
– Cyrill Gutsch, Founder of Parley

Plastic is a design failure. It has no place in our environment, nor in our economy. There’s no closed loop for a faulty material that never dies. About 40 percent of plastic produced worldwide goes to packaging, items intended to be used once and then discarded. One notorious example: plastic six pack rings, which harm life in the oceans.
It’s not enough to recycle plastic. We need to avoid and replace it wherever possible. And we need to develop and test viable, scalable alternatives to succeed. Parley sees the winning formula for creating long-term change in creativity, collaboration and eco-innovation guided by the Parley AIR Strategy: Avoid, Intercept, Redesign. As a key partner of Parley, Corona shares our vision of moving beyond plastics through a material revolution. Building on their prior commitments to support and implement Parley AIR and protect 100 islands around the world by 2020, Corona is now the first global brand to trial plastic-free six pack rings.

A simple switch like this can have a massive impact on the beverage industry, with a ripple effect to the benefit of the living ecosystem our economic system and basic survival depend on: the oceans. The plastic-free rings being tested are made from paper material which are not harmful to wildlife. This marks one more step forward in the movement to end marine plastic pollution — another example of how we can take steps together to end the problematic materials, methods and thinking that cause the destruction.

Since the launch of the Corona x Parley partnership in 2017, we have conducted over 300 clean-ups in over 15 countries, including the Maldives, Palau, Mexico, Dominican Republic, Chile, Indonesia, Italy, South Africa and Australia, with over 7,000 volunteers from more than 200 locations participating in the project. In total, we’ve collected more than 3 million pounds of plastic waste.